THE mission of this number of the SENTINEL is to call attention to the injustice perpetrated against a harmless people in Tennessee, and to announce the principles for which they suffer. It is not to create sympathy for them. They do not need it. If their faith is not worth suffering for it is not worth professing. The object is to bring before all the people the vital principles of truth and religious liberty involved in these persecutions, that they may be saved from participating in the cruel work. “Offenses will come, but woe unto him through whom they come.”
HE who fails to protest against the persecution of his neighbor, thereby virtually forfeits the right to protest when he is himself persecuted.
THE Sunday law of Tennessee is supposed to be for the purpose of protecting the public morals, and yet one of the questions asked several of the jurors in “the Adventist cases,” was, “Have you any conscientious scruples against trying such a case, and, if so, can you lay them aside and decide according to the law and the evidence?” What kind of morality must it be that can be fostered by laws, to administer which courts and jurors must needs lay aside their conscientious convictions? And what guarantee of even common honesty remains when conscience is laid aside, violated, trampled in the dust?
THE Seventh-day Adventist academy at Graysville, Tenn., stands a mute witness to the intolerance of certain Sunday-keepers of that State. It will not be opened again during the present school year, and with thirty or more new indictments against the teachers, patrons and students of the institution, it is clear that when it opens it must be with a new corps of instructors, and largely with new students. However it will open with the fall term.
A letter received after going to press states that the sheriff at the time of writing was serving warrants on sixteen members of the Graysville Seventh-day Adventist church, who are charged with Sunday work. We will give the names next week. The letter also states that the petition for the release of those now imprisoned was rejected by a vote of 13 to 11.
A BILL was introduced into the Tennessee Legislature on the 2nd inst., the purpose of which is to make all personal property liable for fines and costs, including the State and county tax, in misdemeanor cases. Should this bill become a law it will enable the enemies of the Adventists to absolutely strip them of personal property under the Sunday law of that State.